


The grenade was always a metaphor

by BakedAppleSauce



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 22:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18040562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BakedAppleSauce/pseuds/BakedAppleSauce
Summary: “So,” Alfie says. “How do we feel about confetti, mate?”Tommy shrugs. These kind of non-sequiturs don’t really surprise him anymore. Mainly because they aren’t, not really. It’s always leading somewhere, with Alfie. There’s just no use in trying to rush the process – Alfie will get to the point when he gets to the damn point and not a minute sooner.There is crocheting, a revelation, confetti and the threat of violence. Somewhere in between all of that, there might be some flirting happening, too.





	The grenade was always a metaphor

“Take a look at this, will ya,” Alfie says, arm outstretched in Tommy’s general direction and without looking up from the piece of paper he is currently reading.

It’s not the weirdest start to a conversation they’ve ever had, Tommy thinks, but it could be up there. Could be. He hasn’t even said good morning yet. As usual, there’s a chair in front of the desk, so he unbuttons his coat and sits down. Alfie is still holding the thing out at him, so Tommy dutifully leans over and takes it out of his hand. It’s white and soft and a bit bigger than his palm.

“What’s your opinion on that, then,” Alfie says. He flips his stack of papers noisily, rifling through it like he’s looking for something.

It’s a doily and a badly made one at that – as far as Tommy can tell, at least. He’ll be the first to admit that he’s no expert. But the overall shape is far from round and the holes don’t _look_ like they should be that different in size. _“And a very good morning to you too, Alfie,”_ is what he means to say.

“Did you make this?” is what he says instead, thinking that with anyone else, this question could easily be misinterpreted as a deadly insult; especially in their line of work. But this is not the kind of thing Alfie usually gets offended by and Tommy is honestly curious.

“Hmmmm?” Alfie says, throwing his paper stack on the table – can’t be that important then, Tommy thinks, otherwise he wouldn’t risk Tommy reading it by accident – and straightens up in his chair. “That? No. ‘Course I didn’t.”

He puts both arms on the table, links his fingers together on top of the papers and finally looks Tommy in the eye. “There you are. Good to see you, Tommy. You’ll forgive me, I had an obligation to finish reading. That.” He adds after a second with a downwards nod, just in case it wasn’t clear what he was talking about. The papers, as far as Tommy can tell – sat in his chair and without being too obvious about it – appear to be invoices.

“How was the drive?”

“Alright,” Tommy says. “Rained the whole time.”

He’s holding the doily between two fingers and lifts it up between them, not handing it back yet, just a silent question.

“Yeah, your coat’s wet,” Alfie says. “You’re dripping on my floor. S’not very good, is it?”

He’s talking about the doily, not the rainwater from Tommy’s coat. It almost seems like he’s embarrassed. Always hard to tell with him, what’s genuine and what isn’t, but it’s not like Tommy hasn’t had some time and practice. Deep down – very deep down – he is uncomfortably aware of the fact that in addition to that, with Alfie, more often than not he just kind of… _knows._ Instinctively. Like sometimes you just have a handle on certain people and on others you don’t.

Well. It’s useful, if nothing else.

“I’m not an expert, Alfie,” he says seriously because for some reason they always end up having the most serious conversations about the most inane bloody things. “Seems alright to me.”

There is a moment of silence. Tommy’s honestly not sure what he’s going to say if Alfie tells him that actually, he _did_ make that himself, thank you very much, and is now gifting it to Thomas for who the fuck even knows what. Early Christmas present, maybe.

“Was a gift, wasn’t it,” Alfie says. “From this little girl, right, she’s blind. Made it all by herself.”

Thank fuck. Tommy clears his throat. He badly wants to light a cigarette, but the usual ashtray is nowhere to be seen. Alfie doesn’t smoke and, nine times out of ten, he also isn’t overly interested in being polite to the people visiting his office.

“Well,” Tommy says, looking at the doily again. “I would say she’s made a pretty good effort then, eh? Not sure I’d manage anything resembling that if I tried for a year.”

Alfie “hmmmm”s again, eyes going distant.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s all about perspective, innit? For example, if I were to say to you, right, that this thing here was made by someone who’s good at it… let’s say, a seamstress or, or a- what is it, crocheter? Crochet-ess?” His gaze refocuses on Tommy, he waves a hand at him expectantly. Two of his nails are blackish-blue, Tommy notices, ring finger and pinky, like he jammed them in a door or something. It’s also not a rhetorical question.

“No idea,” Tommy admits, then adds, “Someone who crochets?”

“A very skilled individual in any case, let’s agree on that. They made that thing and I then showed it to you, and then you, yeah-” He points at Tommy, using his injured hand. “-if you were to say to me, Alfie, this right here-” At that, he gets half up out of his chair, leaning almost all the way over the table. Tommy obediently hands him his doily back.

“This right here, yeah? This is a piece of shit. Then you would have made an excellent bloody point. But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that after having _made_ that point, you then had to realize that the individual who was doing it was doing it all disadvantaged and in the dark. And that…” He trails off, fingers twisting in his beard absentmindedly. “That would alter the entire equation, wouldn’t it?”

Tommy slowly takes cigarettes and matches out of his pocket and thinks, _shit._ It’s nothing more than a gut feeling at this point, but it’s a familiar one and what’s more – Alfie always, _always_ has a point to make, especially when he’s going on random tangents like this one. They’re clearly not talking about the blind and their gift for crocheting, here. This is _about_ something.

As soon as he lights the cigarette, Alfie starts looking around his office as if he’s never seen it before, finally turning completely around to inspect the cabinets behind his back. The movement stretches his shoulders, exposes the strong line of his neck, opens his upper body up. He always has a tendency to hunch over when he’s just in his shirtsleeves, doesn’t matter if he’s sitting down or standing up, making himself look a lot smaller than he really is. Tommy hasn’t been able to figure out a motive for it yet. Might be an old habit, might be completely unintentional. On the other hand, Alfie Solomons rarely does anything without having a good fucking reason for it.

“Ahh”, he says now, a satisfied sound, lifting up some ledgers and unearthing the missing ashtray. “Here we go.” He puts it in the exact middle of the table. Tommy nods his thanks, even though he has to reach over and pull it closer to his edge of the table. The important question right now is the following – are they going to talk about it or not?

“That is why, Mr. Solomons, in our line of work, information is important,” Tommy says. He takes a long drag and breathes out smoke, aware that Alfie is watching him intently. “Preferably, the accurate kind. What’s the equation?”

There is a knock on the door.

“Yes!” Alfie exclaims loudly “Come in!”

In the enclosed space, his voice echoes off the walls.

Someone brings a tray with coffee, puts it on the table. No pot, just two cups, already filled and steaming hot. Coffee, it turns out, is their lowest common denominator. Alfie doesn’t drink alcohol and neither of them cares for tea all that much. There is a standing offer for Tommy to put an extra shot of Whiskey into his cup, he knows, but so far he’s never accepted it. He resists the urge to rub his eyes. They’re ten minutes in and haven’t even mentioned anything business-related yet.

Which, he has to admit, is not _that_ fucking unusual. Not anymore. They’re not friends by any stretch of the imagination, but for some inexplicable reason they enjoy talking to each other. It ends up happening more and more – whenever he’s in London these days. They’ve eaten together. When the front axle of Tommy’s car broke a few months ago, on the one day he absolutely _had_ to be back home by evening time, Alfie had let him borrow one of his cars for three whole days with only minimal complaining.

For Alfie’s last birthday, Tommy had sent him twenty packets of cigarettes, all of them wrapped individually, and one cigar. (It had been a joke based on a long and heated discussion about the air quality in London compared to the air in Birmingham that had ended with Alfie proclaiming that it was no wonder, really, that Tommy kept on smoking – if the alternative was just one minute spent out on the streets of Small Heath, cigarettes probably _were_ the healthier choice.)

A week later, Alfie had sent him back a single horseshoe. The accompanying handwritten note had read: _Mr. Shelby. Thank you for your kindness and generosity. Please take this complementary horse as a sign of my gratitude. (If the horse is not present, it might have figured out that its intended destination is bloody Birmingham and decided it would be better off somewhere else.) A.S._

Alfie gives surprisingly good business advice, too and has been actually helpful on occasion – as long as the business venture in question isn’t something he might be able to profit from in any way, because in that case he’ll be shamelessly out for his own gain and Tommy has to take every word with at least five grains of salt. They might not be friends, but they’re _friendly,_ is the point. At least to some extent.

And now Tommy’s on edge.

Alfie busies himself with his coffee cup and pretends not to notice. Which is bullshit, honestly, because he reads people as easily as other people read newspaper headlines. Also, Tommy’s not really trying to hide anything. Whatever it is, he figures it can’t be that serious. There’d be more people around if Alfie was going to try anything – and anyway, Tommy is allowed to keep his weapon inside the bakery now. Today hasn’t been an exception, so if push comes to shove, he’s armed.

Alfie’s slouched down in his chair again, blowing on his coffee, but he seems alert all of a sudden, eyes wide open and attentive. The way he is sitting, he looks comfortably relaxed, but Tommy has forced his own body to relax in exactly the same way one too many times to fall for it.

“So,” Alfie says. “How do we feel about confetti, mate?”

Tommy shrugs. These kind of non-sequiturs don’t really surprise him anymore. Mainly because they aren’t, not really. It’s always leading somewhere, with Alfie. There’s just no use in trying to rush the process – Alfie will get to the point when he gets to the damn point and not a minute sooner.

“Don’t really care,” Tommy says. “But sure. For the children, I suppose.”

“What’s your favorite color, then?”

Tommy takes a sip of coffee. Still hot, but bearable. He keeps it inside his mouth for a while, swallows, puts the cup back down again. Alfie is drinking from his own cup without even looking at it, staring right at him. He never holds a cup by the handle, always picks it up by the rim with his fingers.

“In general?” Tommy asks, just to be difficult. “Or what are my preferences regarding confetti, specifically?”

“Confetti-specific preferences, if you don’t mind.”

“I really can’t decide,” Tommy says. “Could I have some options?”

Alfie is already nodding along. “Yeah, sure thing, yeah,” he says. “What about gold? That alright?”

“Sure.”

“And silver? Hmm?”

“Yes.”

“Red.”

“Got no problem with red,” Tommy says. He finishes his cigarette and puts it out in the ashtray.

“Good, good,” Alfie says. “And blue? You alright with blue as well?”

“I’m alright with blue as well.”

“Well that’s just terrific, innit?” Alfie says. He’s getting to the main event and they both know it. “What about green, then,” he says. “That’s a nice color too, hm? Wouldn’t you agree?”

Somewhere in the back of Tommy’s mind he can feel the thought forming – on it’s way but not quite within reach yet, like the whistling of an oncoming train.

“Yes,” he says. “Green, too.”

“Green confetti it is, then.”

The thought arrives and smacks Tommy right between the eyes. He forces himself to stay still. _Green confetti._ The Garrison. Irish business. The Irish blew up the Garrison and all that’s left was green confetti. How the _fuck_ does Alfie know about that? What’s more, where is he going with this?

“Now, blowing up your own pub for the insurance money,” Alfie says, sounding dangerously calm. It seems like he hasn’t blinked once in the last minute, which Tommy knows can’t be true. “Must have been quite a party, mate. Never seen it, but I bet it was a shithole, on account of everything else in the vicinity also being a fucking shithole, yeah? Right? So I’m just saying, Tommy my boy, I _understand_ the need to celebrate the occasion. Confetti and the like.”

He puts one hand over his heart dramatically. In the other hand he still has the coffee cup; since he needs four fingers to hold it around the rim, his pinky is sticking into the air, like a caricature of somebody trying to be posh. His shirt is buttoned only halfway and some of his hair is sticking up in odd places. By all accounts, he should look ridiculous.

He manages to look absolutely fucking feral instead.

It’s in the eyes, Tommy thinks, it has to be. If that look wasn’t directed at him, he would almost be impressed by it. At the very least entertained. He’s good at threatening people, knows that for a fact, but he thinks if he ever managed to emulate something like this – radiating pure violence without moving a single muscle – some aspects of his life would suddenly become a lot easier.

“The thing is, Tommy… now I’m just sat over here, just wondering.”

Alfie puts his cup down, not breaking eye contact. It’s a well-established fact that he keeps the revolver in the top drawer of his desk, so Tommy figures he has a pretty good chance of drawing his own weapon before Alfie gets to his. Of course, there is a very real possibility that he’ll go for the cane instead. It’s leaning right there, against Alfie’s side of the table. Tommy can see the handle. If he goes for that, Tommy will need to back up a few steps to be out of reach; otherwise, Alfie’s going to try and knock his pistole away immediately, probably breaking his arm in the process.

They’re staring at each other. There is no doubt in Tommy’s mind that Alfie just read that entire thought process straight off his face. He couldn’t possibly have missed Tommy’s eyes flickering down to the cane. Doesn’t matter. They’re not quite there yet, anyway.

Alfie continues. “Because at one point in my life, yeah? I was assured, by a very good friend of mine, in a most convincing fashion, that this exact same pub was blown up for insurance purposes… by _his_ people and himself, _personally._ And now I have to hear, right, with my own two fucking ears, that it’s not true.”

And alright, thinks Tommy.

 _There_ they fucking are.

Always better to know exactly what’s going on instead of having to guess, even if it’s nothing but trouble. Blowing up the Garrison for the insurance money had been one of the main selling points for his grenade story – and now that it has turned out to be bullshit, Alfie has obviously drawn certain conclusions about everything else as well. Take out the wrong brick, the whole wall becomes unstable.

Tommy starts on a new cigarette. He can’t even be angry about it; if their roles were reversed, he’d be thinking the exact same thing. Alfie is watching his reaction like a hawk, but the malicious air is gone. He’s probably responding to the strange relief Tommy feels, at least in part. The dangerous moment has passed them by.

“Right,” Tommy says. “So now this information has come to your attention, you’re wondering whether I was bluffing or not.”

“Ohhhh no, no, no,” Alfie says softly. He leans forward in his chair, puts his elbows on the table and rubs his palms together. “I _have_ been asking myself whether you was bluffing or not for a good, long while already. Every single day I’ve gotten up in the morning and I have said to myself, I’ve said – Alfie, are you _sure?_ Are you absolutely _one hundred fucking percent_ certain, right, that on that very day, Thomas Shelby brought a bloody live grenade to your establishment? Are. You. Sure?”

Tommy takes a long, slow drag from his cigarette, lets the smoke go just as slowly, out through mouth and nose simultaneously, which isn’t something he does often. He is acutely aware that Alfie is watching his every move, but now it’s different somehow. Now he feels it fluttering somewhere deep down in stomach. The adrenalin, he thinks. Must be.

“Are you?” he asks. “Sure?”

“Funny that,” Alfie says. “I am, actually, yes, thank you. I am now absolutely and categorically sure, that on that fateful day you _were,_ in fact, bluffing. Didn’t have a single grenade on you, mate.”

“Is that so.”

“It is, actually, yes.”

The thing is, he’s not wrong. Tommy is just never, _ever_ going to admit that. Ever. Not on his deathbed and not in any kind of possible afterlife, where he’ll most likely end up burning in some kind of hell. Not even if Alfie’s there too, burning right next to him, and keeps bothering him about it for all eternity.

“Well, I wouldn’t have had it on me either way,” he says instead. “The rum wouldn’t have gone up if it had detonated in here.”

“Hmmmm,” Alfie says, looking around, lazily rolling his head from side to side. He actually seems to give it some thought. “Might have, if any of the furniture’d caught fire right away. Anyway… fuck the rum, we’d still have all been dead, yeah?”

“The main goal wasn’t to die, believe it or not.”

“Wasn’t mine either.”

“Well no,” Tommy says, suddenly amused and not really knowing why. This is still a risky fucking conversation to have. _“Your_ goal was to get a lot of money from me, eh?”

“I’m a humble man,” Alfie says, fingers going back to his beard, twisting, knuckles rubbing under his chin. “What can I say. Goal hasn’t changed, for your information.”

“To be a humble man?” Tommy asks, as dryly as possible. Somewhere, somehow, the mood has shifted. He’s not quite clear on where they have ended up; only that they’ve never been here before. He's not sure how to feel about it.

“Fuck off,” Alfie says, but instead of angry he sounds… kind of pleased. For a moment, they’re just sitting there – not quite smiling at each other, but also not _not_ smiling at each other.

“Humility’s one of the heavenly virtues, after all.”

Tommy has no idea why he just said that. It definitely didn’t come out sarcastic enough, sounded way too… he doesn’t even know. Something. It’s not like they’ve never made fun of each other before, but for some reason it seems inappropriate now. Close. Like they’re in on the joke together. Which admittedly they kind of are, but that’s beside the point.

“Fuuuck off,” Alfie says again, drawing out the vowel sound this time. There is the tiniest grin on his face. The moment drags on. The back of Tommy’s neck is starting to itch. He hastily clears his throat. Sits up a little more, straightens his back. It’s high time they brought this conversation back on track.

“Alright then,” he says, as businesslike as possible.

Alfie seems to pick up on the shift in tone immediately. “Alright then, Thomas,” He slaps his hand down on the table. “Should talk about the important things, eh?”

“We should, yes.” He puts his second cigarette out in the ashtray and only notices halfway through that there is still more than half of it left. Well, _shit._

It’s unsalvageable now.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Don't ask me about a timeline, I have no idea where exactly this is supposed to fit in.  
> Post-season 2, in any case. 
> 
> (Also be kind, this is the first thing I've ever written in English.)


End file.
